The present invention relates to a magnetic head, and more particularly, to a multichannel magnetic head having good contact characteristics with a magnetic tape.
Heretofore, magnetic heads for performing recording and reproducing on a magnetic tape have most commonly employed a polished planar surface in order to maintain continuous contact with a running magnetic tape.
A tape recorder with a multichannel magnetic head in which recording/reproducing can be simultaneously performed in plural channels on a magnetic tape has recently become available. Since this multichannel magnetic head performs recording/reproducing in multiple channels on a magnetic tape of an ordinary width, there is a disadvantage that the width of each recording track is very narrow. For example, when recording/reproducing is performed on eight tracks on a half width of a 3.8 mm tape commonly used in compact cassettes, the recording track pitch per channel is only about 200 microns. With such a narrow track width, the recording/reproducing output can easily be reduced by the presence of even a minute amount of dust or other contaminant deposited on the surface of the head. Also, with such a narrow recording track pitch, even very slight waving (wow or flutter) of the tape makes it impossible for the head to trace the tracks well. This often causes a reduction in reproducing output. Particularly, as the recording density is made higher and as the magnetic recording tape is made thinner, such a reduction in output and the loss of tracking accuracy become more acute.